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sometimes you need something cute

Our high school is participating in the 1:1 computing program for students. This year each student received a Google Chromebook with a case to protect it. We are an Apple family and Rose was disappointed that they didn’t all get MacBooks, though it seems the Chromebook is easier to integrate and much less expensive and for many families, this is their student’s first computer. They are small and cute and have a touch screen. They have many social sites blocked so the kids won’t all be on Twitter and Instagram but then they still all have their phones. However, the case doesn’t fit that well, you have to jam the computer into it and squeeze to get it zipped closed, so Rose asked if I would knit a quick sleeve for hers, and “can you get it done by Tuesday when school starts?”

So we perused my stash and found a couple of balls of yarn that were part of a gift bag from a Mindful Knitting retreat I went to back in 2006. Pink and grey, really soft and just the right weight. I swatched a little to figure out how many stitches I would need to go around the computer. I only had to rip it out once before I got it right.

I decided to use this project to learn a new technique that I have been meaning to figure out for a while. The Jogless Join. This is where you can change colors while knitting in the round without an obvious “jog” in the stripe. It’s pretty simple once you actually try it. Here you can’t even tell where the old row ends and the new row begins.

Then we decided we would make the stripes in the Fibonacci series, since this was for school and she’ll be taking calculus and physics and all. I was impressed that she could tell me the code for the series. 1,2,3,5,8,13,21….. you add the two previous numbers together to get the next value in the series.

The deadline turned out to be no big deal since Tuesday night was a rare slow night in the ER and I wasn’t assigned to the trauma zone. Therefore I could knit while I watched my admitted patients sleep.

You can see the Fibonacci stripes marching out nicely, then in reverse so as to use roughly even amounts of each color. The pattern will be available on my revelry page soon.

If you look closely you can see where the new color joins on each stripe, the beginning of the round moves over to the left one stitch each time. but overall I think it looks better.

The finished product with a garter stitch open edge to prevent curling. Rose is happy and as soon as she showed her friends they immediately wanted one too. A sure sign of success with teenagers.